Librarians and medical educators analyzed the quality of information resources used by first- and second-year medical students in their case-based small group learning summaries. Librarians provided instruction on using library resources and gave formal feedback to students about appropriate resources for basic science and clinical questions. The team found that students used a high number of clinical and basic science journal articles and textbooks with a number of factors influencing their resource choices...

University common reading programs provide a shared experience as students transition into college life and develop critical thinking skills. Typically in such programs, all students in an incoming class read and discuss the same book. Conversely, the University of Florida Honors Program's (un)common reads facilitates the same skills development through multiple small sections, each focusing on a different book and each with flexible and innovative assignments and activities. Health Science Center librarians have taught in these (un)common reads since the spring semester 2010-2011...

In hospitals and clinics, anyone who "touches" a patient has a license authorizing them to do so-from the phlebotomist to the cardiologist, from the genetic counselor to the social worker, and so on, except for the clinical medical librarian. This column discusses the intent versus the realities of occupational licensure for clinical medical librarians and provides recommendations for next steps.

In recent years, the amount of video content created and uploaded to the Internet has grown exponentially. Video content has unique accessibility challenges: indexing, transcribing, and searching video has always been very labor intensive, and there were no automated ways of searching videos for specific content. New software tools that use deep learning methods are automating some of these processes, making video content more discoverable and useful. There are also many new tools for processing and manipulating video in interesting ways...

The Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine's (OUWB) service-oriented mission and vision is reflected in all aspects of the school including its culture, curriculum, research, community engagement, and the OUWB Medical Library. Though starting informally, the OUWB Medical Library's outreach program has matured and now sustains a wide array of activities each year. This outreach program has blossomed into a three-pronged model that is inclusive of activities and endeavors engaging the institution and local community: integrate, partner, and create...

Reference or citation managers aid in capturing and managing citations and associated full text, tracking references and citing them properly in manuscripts, and creating bibliographies. With more features than ever, selecting the most appropriate reference manager can be overwhelming for users and librarians. One common situation in which librarians are asked for advice involves building shared libraries of references to support collaborative group work. This project developed a structured evaluation for comparison of several common citation managers and prototypical use cases to help match features with user needs, preferences, and workflows...

Genetics Home Reference is a free, online resource created and maintained by the National Library of Medicine. It is designed to provide genetic information to a wide variety of audiences, particularly the general public. The site consists of original information and links to other curated resources.

Five years ago, the Harriet F. Ginsburg Health Sciences Library created a Personal Librarian Program (PLP) to encourage librarian engagement with first- and second-year medical students and to promote awareness of library resources and services. Prior to the creation of the PLP, the library struggled with finding ways to connect with its medical students, especially because the library is 98% digital. The PLP was created to give students an individualized library experience and an easier way to interact with librarians...

This column describes the development and implementation of a responsive library course designed to train third-year medical students as they begin their clerkships. The course design consisted of a brief face-to-face introduction during third-year orientation and an online course developed in Canvas, an online learning management system. The objective of the course was to not only introduce students to the resources but also to teach them how to effectively use those resources at the point-of-care. Students evaluated the course to assess the overall effectiveness of the instruction...

This article describes the development of a flipped classroom instructional module designed by librarians to teach first- and second-year medical students how to search the literature and find evidence-based articles. The pre-class module consists of an online component that includes reading, videos, and exercises relating to a clinical case. The in-class sessions, designed to reinforce important concepts, include various interactive activities. The specifics of designing both components are included for other health sciences librarians interested in presenting similar instruction...

DynaMed Plus® from EBSCO Health is an evidence-based tool that health professionals can use to inform clinical care. DynaMed Plus content undergoes a review process, and the evidence is synthesized in detailed topic overviews. A unique three-level rating scale is used to assess the quality of available evidence. Topic overviews summarize current evidence and provide recommendations to support health providers at the point-of-care. Additionally, DynaMed Plus content can be accessed via a desktop computer or mobile platforms...

Faculty publications have been collected in universities, health, and medical institutions for many years, and Cincinnati Children's is no exception. Since 1949, a yearly list of faculty publications was manually compiled using multiple data sources and disseminated by the Edward L. Pratt Research Library. Products to centralize faculty publication collection and analysis with bibliometric tools are growing in popularity. This article will review the collaborative decision to choose a Research Information Management System and the implementation process including successes, challenges, and future opportunities...

The objective of this article is to describe the recent space and furniture utilization study conducted through direct observation at the small, academic-centered Schusterman Library. Student workers from the library's reference desk monitored two semesters of use and went on to observe a third semester after electrical power upgrades were installed. Extensive use details were collected about where library patrons sat during which parts of the day, and certain areas of the library were ultimately identified as much more active than others...

This column describes a process for integrating information literacy (IL) and evidence-based medicine (EBM) content within a new school of medicine curriculum. The project was a collaborative effort among health sciences librarians, curriculum deans, directors, and faculty. The health sciences librarians became members of the curriculum committees, developed a successful proposal for IL and EBM content within the curriculum, and were invited to become course instructors for Analytics in Medicine. As course instructors, the librarians worked with the other faculty instructors to design and deliver active learning class sessions based on a flipped classroom approach using a proprietary Information Mastery curriculum...

Wellness-the balance of mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health for the overall health benefit of the individual-is a growing concern, particularly for professionals in the medical field. Although wellness is usually viewed in opposition to technology, more digital devices and mobile applications are emerging to support wellness for health consumers. This wellness technology seeks to improve the overall health of the user through increasing calm and decreasing stress. This column will explain what wellness technology is, concerns over its widespread application, examples of wellness devices on the market currently, and an overview of where it is being applied in libraries...

Patient engagement in health care decisions largely depends on a patient's health literacy and the health literacy attributes of the health care organization. Librarians have an established role in connecting patients with health information in the context of their care. However, librarians can play a larger role in helping to make changes in their organization's health literacy attributes. This article discusses one medical library's process of leading systematic assessment of their organization's health literacy attributes...

The goal of this content analysis was to identify commonly used content and design features of academic health sciences library home pages. After developing a checklist, data were collected from 135 academic health sciences library home pages. The core components of these library home pages included a contact phone number, a contact email address, an Ask-a-Librarian feature, the physical address listed, a feedback/suggestions link, subject guides, a discovery tool or database-specific search box, multimedia, social media, a site search option, a responsive web design, and a copyright year or update date...

This study measures how online library instructional tutorials implemented into an evidence-based practice course have impacted the information literacy skills of occupational and physical therapy graduate students. Through a rubric assessment of final course papers, this study compares differences in students' search strategies and cited sources pre- and post-implementation of the tutorials. The population includes 180 randomly selected graduate students from before and after the library tutorials were introduced into the course curriculum...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) library instruction program provides training services to staff, clinicians, and researchers across NIH and several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) operating divisions. The audience, training needs, and training topics are diverse and constantly changing. The NIH library has developed several new services and class topics to meet the needs of its NIH and HHS communities. Context, strategies, and future directions for the NIH library instruction program are described...